


Simple

by lazlong



Series: Simple [2]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: AU, F/F, M/M, Other, Swearing, devious child, screwed timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:05:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazlong/pseuds/lazlong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All children are mad, from an adult viewpoint. (c)Lewis Padgett</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nothing below is mine, except mistakes. Only plot as such could be considered as a result of my imagination.  
> A/N: Unbetaed. Feedback loved and welcomed.

_ **"All children are mad, from an adult viewpoint."** _  
_ (c)Lewis Padgett _

Gus is a simple boy.He doesn't want much in his life, but what he wants, he gets.

He has very good hearing, and he is not broadcasting the fact for good reasons. Say, you spill  once  what you have heard and then nobody will say anything of interest for a long time. Less ice-creams. More screaming. So, it is easy to keep mouth shut, really. He might not understand all that he hears, but he manages somehow, like an animal, feel what to do to get roof over his head, food and safety; like a stray cat knows what to do in order to get fed, not kicked.

***

And all he knows for now, that Justin is whispering at night "You are not your father, not your father". That's silly, of course Dad is not his grandfather, and he has never been.

So he is almost five, when he starts feeling changes around him and he doesn't like them one bit. Well, not all the changes are bad, but still. There are changes. They unsettle him. Everything out of ordinary might mean bad things. There is a shiny, wide ring on Dad's hand, and the same looking ring on Justin's. That's good, because Dad is in good mood more often, since he got the shiny thing.

Then there are bad things: Gus knows that he is going to live somewhere else. He doesn't care where it is, but he knows that he doesn't want to be there because Dad won't be there. _That_ he knows. 

***

And then Dad comes and Justin is with him. They take him out, to this weird-smelling park, where sand is gritty and ducks are over-friendly. And even if he is five (almost five) only, he knows that they are going to Tell Something Important. It is scary.

He knows few things only; he is five (almost) after all, but the things important for his survival he knows with a deadly precision.

He knows, in the same way as animals can sense impending earthquake thousands of miles and days before (even if they don’t know a shit about seismic levels and pressure and even if they can not distinguish Monday from Tuesday) that Mom and Mother won't stay together for long. 

Well, may be they will, but the chances are slim, so slim, that it is like walking the fucking quicksand on playground, so it is too fucking dangerous to rely on them.

**** And exactly like animals in a story that his Mom read once, something out of Jungle Book and old man, and mountain, he knows, that he have to make run for his life. Way before mountain crumbles.

Because children are cruel like that, they want to survive. Not taking into account the feelings of parents. 

***

The earth is trembling beneath his feet already, and he knows it. So he has to move and move fast, before he is buried beneath the hill. 

So he starts to plot his escape.

Therefore he plots, and plots, and plots. If he stops plotting, he will cease existing, he is sure. He gets tired, and he sleeps; and he continues to plot in his sleep, even if he can not remember, what exactly. 

But he is determined, and he won't know it for years, that this is some weird genetic combination from his dad, that lets him focus on one thing in such young age, but he uses it without knowledge of it. He uses all fucking resources and then pulls some more.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Babies, of course, are not human - they are animals,   
> and have a very ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even snakes;   
> the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the lower vertebrates.”   
> (c)Lewis Padgett

Years later he will try to pinpoint what exactly made him, barely human being way back then, to decide pull together his non-existent will-power and his faltering concentration of five-year-old to complete one mission of the utmost importance in his life - get to live with his Dad and Father. What made him to decide it in the first place.

He thinks, that as strange as it might seem, it was sex.

Sex in the first and last place, and in between for good measure. Not that he really understood then all underlying things, but what he understood was the touching. Difference of touching, in touching, touching at all.

_______________

From the moment Dad walks home, Justin (it is Justin, not Father yet, at least for some time) touches Dad. They start touching, and never really end.

Yes, they can be at the opposite ends of the loft or the house, and they still are touching with a look, with a tilt of head, with half smile.

They sort of rotate around each other, Gus thinks, while drawing circles with dividers sneaked from Justin.

When Justin walks home, Dad wakes up in a way, becomes alive, attentive. They touch, soft touches, casual touches (feelings are there, engraved in memory, notwithstanding the immense lack of entries in vocabulary to describe them), glide of hand, caress.

_______________

Gus is very matter-of-fact about it at five, and as he thinks almost decade later, that the most significant seismograph was sex. Well, he did not blush then (not that he blushes much right now), but he, in a way all children know, knew _what exactly_ these sounds of grunting and hissing and bed squeaking deep in the night really signified - the grown-ups were doing their Grown-Up-Game.

And he knows that Dad and Justin are playing deep in the night, and early in the morning, without exception. So that's two games a day. Sometimes, if it is Saturday, and they think he is still sleeping, they are playing it at bright morning sun and at gloomy rain, and Dad's eyes become all dark and seeing only the Justin; and Justin, Justin's face changes, like he is seeing something holy. Not that Gus knows at that age what holy is, he will come up with definition much later, but still. Holy.

_______________

Mom and Mother play, but seldom. They kiss, but that's it.

They do not move like it will pain them to be apart, like there is invisible rubber-band that rushes them back together, as soon as they are too far from each other.

Dad and Justin - even in Britin, especially in Britin - move all around each other. If Justin is painting, then Dad is taking his laptop and stretching on the studio's floor. And Gus is puttering around, not wanting to be left out.

And vice versa: if Dad is working furiously in the cabinet ( that later got moved down and adjourned to the studio) then Justin is the one taking his sketches, and his computer, and joining him there.

Really, it is easy to decide for Gus. He takes few variables only, applies them, and comes up with a decision.

They never want to be one without another, and they do not seem to mind that he joins them. So, it makes sense in his five-old-logic, that he will never be abandoned.

_______________

Mom and Mother, they manage to get to other side of flat, not speaking about house, in a blink of eye. They don't speak, and when they speak, they do not listen. 

They don't hunger each other. They do not starve for touch. They do not look half-dead till the other comes home. They are not worried sick if they do not have each other within touching distance.

He knows, like an animal, what signifies safety and what signifies trouble. No grown-up games mean a lot of trouble.

_______________

So, at the end, there is no decision to be made at all. There is action only, an action to be taken immediately.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own, which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind." (c)Lewis Padgett

Few weeks have passed in a haze and maze of jumbled thoughts without fail-proof solution; he is not so good with time, really. At least, not yet.  He knows he can not be too obvious in his wishes, like whining for zoo or new bicycle. So he calculates, and thinks, and he bloody well is not going to give up.

In fact, he has to hide his true intentions for a very long time.  Or at least till he is adult.

So he hooks up in the last few weeks with some not so infuriatingly stupid kid as others in day-care are and develops sort of crush-friendship.

***

Then, when he is at Dad and Justin, he sort of whines a little bit, but not too much, how he is going to miss funny Johnny (pathetic cross-eyed twat who tags along as soon as Gus lets play with his new green lorry, but - who cares? Johnny serves his purpose.), his new best-est friend.

When he is taken for last time from the day-care, he makes a fucking scene, crying, "for my best-est friend" and Johnny cooperates crying for best-est friend Gus (namely, his shiny lorry). He makes sure that the menacing-looking lady is noting it all down. Lady with lovely notepad and permanent scowl, who can make grown-ups to do things. For children.

***

All the way to Canada, this strange place where people talk in a soft voices, and guttural sounds, and words can be heard, but not understood, he plots.

In Canada, he knows the fucking name of the place already, Canada, it tastes like sour milk, and he knows for sure what he will have to do. Not too fast, not too much, or he will be caught.

But he knows that if he talks about the same thing for days at morning, day, and night, Mom and Mother won't be able to hold against him. Because they do not listen, and when they listen, they do not listen carefully.

***

So he is _really careful,_ and when after three weeks it is decided to ship him back for a week "to visit his best-est friend", then he is smart enough to be jittery with joy, jumping all around, squealing, and so on. Smart enough not to exhibit apprehension how the other parts of his plan is going to go; only reveal joy about the first part.

Act like small stupid child, in possession of short-time memory only.

***

He is afraid all the time, till the Dad and Justin takes him at Toronto's airport (because both of them are really busy, and have travelled all this way to pick him up), that his idiotic scheme will be cracked, but it never is.

Well, there is something suspiciously like laugh in Justin's eyes, but he voices nothing. And there is some reprimand in a way Dad is biting his cheek, but he says nothing at all. So Gus follows the rules and says nothing as well. At least nothing important.

They return to the loft, and next day he have to go to meet his best-est friend. Well, this is small price to pay, considering, that at the end of day he is going to see Dad and Justin, and just ..just _be._

***

And so it goes: he is polite and well-behaved in Pittsburgh, but miserable and stupid in Canada; bright and smart in Pitts, dull and lifeless in Toronto. Supposedly, over his "best-est friend" who really is not so bad (and not so good, but he can cope with it).

He feels sad for his Mother and Mom, but not bad. The fucking ground of the hill is already trembling, and he can not get out fast enough. All he cares about is his survival, and he won't survive in this weird-smelling place where people speak in guttural sounds that might start making sense, but he won't allow it.

Because then he might give up, and he can not allow himself to loose focus. He do not know in detail why it is so important not to give up, not to loose focus, but he knows quite well the safety with Dad and Justin, and constant alarm with mothers. For him, that is enough to keep going.

***

After third flight in two months his mothers can not stand it anymore. There are talks and Talks, and finally the Talk, and it is decided to let him live in Pitts for a year "while we settle down, and he has bonded so much with Johnny, and psychiatrist says that it is essential for his development", and "really, we can not cope on top of everything that Gus can not adapt here; we do not have time for that, not now". Gus thinks gloomily, you can cope, you can cope just fine if you bloody tried but you never do. Try. To cope.

***

The thing is, he suspects pretty much (there is a lot of time for thinking, while they are on the fourth in two months flight from Toronto - and this is his last flight from fucking Canada for a very long time, or at least till his adulthood, he will make sure of it), that Dad and Justin already have called him on his shit, they just have not voiced it; but just as he predicted, they don't mind having him around.

***  
After all, Gus is easy to have around – he doesn't want much in his life.

But what he wants, he gets.

Always.


End file.
